People purchase products and services, but they buy dreams. Products are merely the delivery vehicles for them.
In other words, consumers purchase benefits – beauty, safety, financial freedom, island vacations, homes, popularity, sex appeal, and glowing health – not features – horsepower, sleek design, house color, or size.
Savvy marketers recognize that their single most important goal is to help their customers achieve their dreams. So, they find out exactly what their target audience is searching for, articulate it, and then deliver on their promises.
Points To Remember:
• Many small business owners mistakenly talk more about themselves than their prospects! In other words, the public isn’t too interested in how long you’ve been in business, whether you’re family owned and operated, or if your warehouse is large or small.
• They don’t want to hear a story about you, they want to hear a story about them. They want to know how you can help them save time, make more money, find their soul mates, improve their relationships, get promoted, reduce pain, or make them laugh.
• Smart marketers know that their target audiences’ desires are usually not lofty, enduring, or huge. One valuable e-course, one shirt, one painting, or one tube of lipstick aren’t likely to have significant or lasting impact on their lives – but they may for a moment or two. And that’s okay, because for that brief period of time they shared a positive experience. And even though their customers might forget about the product, they will remember the feeling.
• Savvy entrepreneurs realize that they’re not the only show in town and the main reason consumers buy from one company over the other, is because they have confidence in the seller. They have confidence in their ability to solve their most pressing problems. They have confidence that they won’t be abandoned after the sale. And they have confidence in their products’ quality, value, and selection.
Yet, if you can’t talk to them about these things, you might as well hang up your hat because you’ll just waste a lot of time, money, and energy. The good news, however, is that you can learn to communicate more effectively with your intended audience if you study the masters and practice improving your communications every day.
Adapted from Guerrilla Marketing On The Internet by Mitch Meyerson, Jay Levinson and Mary Scarborough
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